“No one can conceive the emotion that rises up in the bosom of the traveller as he stands on the broad prairie, and sees the horizon settling down upon one wide sea of waving grass…animated with the songs and the sight of the feathered tribes. The view of the prairie, as it stretches before you, often appears like a perfect flower garden…on every side as far as the eye could reach...rich and brilliant petals of every color and hue.” (2)
Story I:
"I remember it well"
My paternal third great grandfather, Robert, stood upon the hillside, a gentle breeze upon his face, sheltered by a grove of trees that “overlooked the newly emerging prairie grasses and flowers” (3) and found himself charmed by a lovely spring gushing with an abundance of fresh water, which provided sustenance and picturesque beauty to all with which it was surrounded. The deep and primitive forests of New York and Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana were all that he and his forebears had known for the last two hundred-and-one years, but those forests were now at Robert’s back. Forward was a new frontier called the prairie and the settlers were just learning of its usefulness. Here “the little bluestem was exquisite with turquoise and garnet and chartreuse” (4), and here, “large prairie groves. . .offered shelter from sun and wind that swept across the prairie” (5). It was here, where grew the “pawpaw, sassafras, and poison ivy. . .in the shade of oak and hickory or maple and basswood trees,” (6) that Robert’s soul alit. I wish that I could have seen it all the way that my ancestors did back then. Although, within the web of generational inter-connection I suppose I have experienced it. After all, I am them and they are me.
Goldenrod (Soldago) grows in profusion at Springbrook Prairie Forest Preserve in DuPage County, Illinois, while fall asters fill
Eager to inform the family of his decision to halt their search, Robert quickly descended the hillside. Returning to his family he found that, of equal import to the spring he’d located, was the fact that his wife had already made the decision to stay. Nancy was roughly three months pregnant with the couple’s fifth child and also managing the care of their four other children; seven year old William, three year old John and the nineteen month old twins Nathan and Daniel. She is said to have indicated, quite decisively, that she was done traveling and approved of the present location. Her opinion, no doubt, carried a great deal of weight.
Robert and Nancy are themselves but twenty-five years of age at this time and have migrated all the way from Warren County, Indiana, traveling “through Chicago down the old Saint Charles Road to the DuPage River” (7). Settlers traveling west along the old Saint Charles Road would often choose to “pass through Chicago,” for in those days this “straggling village. . .offered no charms to them” (8). No doubt Robert and Nancy knew Chicago was not the place for them to put down roots in for many reasons. They did not seek life in a growing city, but land and its ownership. Solitude and its freedom. To have their hands in the soil. “Chicago…was full of whiskey…so plentiful that drunken brawls resulting in serious injury or death were a common occurrence [amongst the] frontier riffraff” (9). Robert, a man always noted for his honesty and integrity would, no doubt, have grown frustrated and disgusted living in this “straggling village” that was “the scene of extensive fraud and collusion” (10).
Although my family knew that their approximate destination was not Chicago, if they had passed through the area before the impact of the onslaught of euro-white settlers, (like themselves), they would have found it a much more delightful place and much more to their liking. As Abrams writes:
“Before Chicago existed, most of Illinois was covered with tall grasses and wildflowers. In this ‘sea of grass,’ big bluestem, Indian grass, prairie dock, and compass plant grew as tall as a man on horseback; switchgrass was chest high; and little bluestem, northern dropseed, purple coneflower, and prairie cinquefoil were waist high. Fields of flowers—yellow goldenrod, white aster, and purple gentian—bloomed through the seasons in a profusion of color.
“It was a lush, sunny grassland. Flocks of birds gathered seed while hordes of grasshoppers chewed on leaves. Swarms of bees sipped flower nectar. Tens of thousands of prairie dogs and buffalo grazed on the
greenery. Hawks and eagles soared through the sky, scanning the ground for mice and rabbits while earthbound foxes, wolves, and bobcats hunted larger animals.” (11)
Abrams continues regarding the Chicago-Area Prairies:
“Butterflies drink their flower nectar; caterpillars and grasshoppers munch on their leaves. The air is filled with the chirps and trills of songbirds that feed on the insects. A rustling sound signals that a vole or shrew is searching for fruits or seeds. . .It is also the domain of oak savanna, where fire-resistant oak trees are scattered among the grasses. Here and there, these trees spread their branches and provide a shady oasis from the relentless sun on the grassland.” (12)
“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.”
©broadexpanse
Although the pre-Chicago Abrams refers to above was gone by the time my family passed through, further along the trail there was still prairie to be found. And so, from a location near the West Branch of the DuPage River Robert and Nancy’s caravan continued west and forded the Fox River, at which point Robert “made a halt at St. Charles.” However, “not being content, he reconnoitered the country for several miles east” (13). In 1874 the Combination Atlas Map of Du Page County, Illinois summarized:
“[A]rriving in St. Charles, Kane county, on the 8th or 9th of May, where they remained three days in camp…Mr. Benjamin not finding a claim to suit him, turned to the east, and by chance discovered his present homestead on the 12th day of May, 9 A.M., 1834. He was charmed by the bright crystal water that gushed forth from the spring now near his house, ever singing of the healthfulness and beauty of the locality. Mr. Benjamin went to work with a will, and in less than three days he had erected a log-house, and his family occupied it ere the sun disappeared below the horizon on the third day. This was the first erected house in Wayne township.” (14)
In 1882 Rufus Blanchard wrote “Daniel Benjamin, the father, with his four sons—Andrew, John, Joseph and Robert Y.—and about ten other families, all came to the place together with their own teams…All these families, except the Benjamins and Joseph Vale…settled on the Fox River” (15). In 1984, the writing of Tannisse T. Blatchford continues the Benjamin tale:
“They selected their land just east of the West Branch of the Du Page River, close to a spring, on May 12. Within three days, they had built a log cabin, to become the first settlers…They marked the boundaries of their future farms by blazing the trunks of bur oaks and walnuts. The high wooded ground was claimed for several reasons. Foremost, it was what they were accustomed to and the earliest settlers, understandably, clung to familiar ways in an alien land. Secondly, they were able to avoid the abundant sloughs and had easy access to fuel, building materials, game and shelter from storms. And, finally, they believed that prairie soil would not support crops. They made clearings among the trees as their forebearers had done, and did their first planting there. Soon word reached them that the grassland was as rich and fertile as the woodland and they began to plow furrows around as much of the prairie as they reckoned they could pay for.” (16)
In 1913, the compilers of the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois wrote of settler necessities:
“In those early days it was absolutely necessary to have both fuel and water, for none of the modern appliances or substitutes were then obtainable, and the pioneer oftentimes sacrificed other advantages to be sure of timber with which to build his house and feed his fire, and water for himself and stock. For this reason the prairies were but sparsely settled at first. Later on, when the more desirable timber sites had been taken up, people began to secure the neglected land, to find that the soil was much richer, and crops could be put in without the exhausting labor of clearing off the heavy woodland.” (17)
And so my ancestors became some of the founders of what would become Wayne Township, Illinois. “Perhaps no section of Du Page County is more picturesque than Wayne. The gently rolling land affords beautiful scenery” (18).
Blazing star wildflowers in the light of a setting sun, Springbrook Prairie Nature Reserve, DuPage County, Illinois
My ancestors were not the original inhabitants of this “gently rolling land” (19), however. Those were the Potawatomi, the Chippewa, the Ottawa, the Ojibwa, the Winnebago, the Sauk, and the Fox People. They were all, however, being systematically and forcibly removed from their lands. These were, more often than not, unorganized and poorly executed removals resulting in death. “[T]he removal period was a disastrous time for many Potawatomis” (20). When my family arrived, in 1834, it was predominately the Potawatomi People they had dealings with, and that tribe’s numbers were rapidly dwindling. They were being exterminated. It was genocide and ethnic cleansing and this cannot be overlooked. And the process was disorganized at best:
“Subjected to fraud and chaotic planning, the Potawatomis often were marched west under the supervision of political hacks more interested in making money than in the welfare of their charges…To attempt the removal of large numbers of Indians through disorganized planning and with dishonest and ill-trained personnel was to invite disaster. To believe that such removals would take place smoothly was inexcusable ignorance.” (21)
Further, it was done for a very specific purpose:
“[T]he Potawatomis had little interest in becoming farmers [and] an agriculturally oriented frontier society would not tolerate large numbers of semi-nomadic hunters in its midst. The Potawatomis planted small corn fields, but they also allowed most reservation land to remain in its natural state, a virtual crime to the land-hungry settlers of the region…white settlers wanted the lands and demanded that the Potawatomis be removed…whites voted; Indians did not.” (22)
My ancestors were on this land because others, who did not use the land the “right way” were being forcibly removed by means of trickery and warfare.
The history of the Potawatomi People, however, is their story to tell. Not mine. The history of the first peoples of this continent is incredibly complex and has challenged many scholars over the generations. Out of deep respect toward this complexity, I wish to attempt only a brief summary of some of the known interactions of these particular people since their first encounter with “The Great White Father,” which occurred during the mid-seventeenth century. My writing relies heavily upon the research of R. David Edmunds and his book The Potawatomis: Keepers of the Fire. Here Edmunds summarizes:
“When the French entered the Illinois country, the region was occupied by the Illinois Confederacy, but they were a declining people, and by the middle of the eighteenth century the remnants of the Peorias, Kaskaskias, and other Illinois tribesman had fled to the American Bottom, opposite St. Louis. In central Illinois the confederacy was replaced by northern Indians anxious to claim the prairies as their own. First came the Kickapoos, fierce warriors whom the French encouraged to settle in the Vermilion and Wabash valleys. The Kickapoos expanded into the Sangamon River country, but they, too, were pressed by more recent arrivals from the north. During the last half of the eighteenth century, Potawatomi hunters descended the Kankakee and Fox valleys, established villages and eventually claiming control over most of northern Illinois. The Potawatomis remained in the region until the 1830’s, when white pressure forced them across the Mississippi.” (23)
How long they had been there before, only the Great Spirit knows, but they would not last much longer after the introduction of the white man. They would suffer one forced relocation after another, removal after removal, epidemics of euro-white disease, the Black Hawk War and its Battle of Bad Axe, the renouncing of their remaining lands in eastern Illinois, the Treaty of Chicago, the whiskey treaties, trails of tears and trails of death. Trails that they had been trudging for two centuries really. The trails along which they sold all of their lands whether willingly or unwillingly. Land cessations came with a rapid pace. “1807, 1816, 1817, 1818, 1821, 1826, 1828, 1829, 1832, 1833” (24). After 1840 few of the Potawatomi People would remain in the areas of their sacred lands for only “scattered families still roamed through their old homeland” (25). And, in the end, my ancestors settled a county where, “[a]t one time, four major villages of the Potawatomi Indians were located” (26) and where, although greatly reduced in population, a handful still remained. In 1984 Tannisse T. Blatchford writes of what was being lost:
“Spring 1834 came to northern Illinois as it had come since the world began. The sun rose and set over the emerging prairie grasses splashed with birdsfoot violets, pink and white shooting stars and golden alexanders. Gnarled branches of bur oak and black walnut groves stood silhouetted against the pastel sky. Willows wound with the creek beds in a haze of pale yellow bloom. It was a world of tranquility and silence broken only by the howling of wolves, the drumming of deer hooves, the brushing of deerskin leggings against the grasses, the bubbling of a spring. A world where the only variation, for millenniums, was the seasons. But this was a year of transition, set in motion by the defeat of Chief Black Hawk.” (27)
In the midst of all of this it was written that “Mr. Benjamin went to work with a will, and in less than three days he had erected a log-house” (28). The fact that it reads “he…erected” is only part of the truth. Marion Knoblauch would explain in 1950, “Vale and Benjamin and each of the latter’s four sons quickly threw up log cabins, aided by the Potawatomies, whose labor was paid for with a barrel of Vale’s whiskey” (29). And, back in 1882 Rufus Blanchard had asserted:
“Besides the Benjamins Mr. Vale also settled, a little to the west of them. Among the necessities which he brought to the new country in his wagon was a barrel of whiskey (a questionable one) of which Mr. Benjamin says he never gave away a drop. He was the only one of the company who laid in a stock of this emollient, and may be regarded as the first monopolist that ever practiced that modern art in Wayne. Here he had a corner on whisky, and shortly after the settlement of the place, a band of 300 Potawatomies came to the grove and encamped. He was now bull in the whisky market, having it all his own way. At whatever price he sold it, Mr. Benjamin says, a riot among the Indians was soon manifest, and one of their number was killed.” (30)
In 1857 Richmond and Vallette also wrote about the use of whiskey during the early days of the settlement:
“The first family here was that of John Laughlin. Several families settled in different parts of the town during 1834…Among these…R. Benjamin…Here, also, the first dwelling and the first school-house were erected. There were but few settlers in the town at the time when the first building was put up, and the owners of it anticipated some trouble in procuring help at the raising. They however, obviated all difficulty on that score by sending for a barrel of whiskey, which, with the subordinate services of only three men, performed the work in an expeditious and satisfactory manner.” (31)
Whiskey served many purposes in the lives of the settlers, not all of them nefarious. “Whiskey in a tin cup was passed around at the house-raising, the log-rolling and in the harvest field” (32). In 1870 Samuel Park wrote that “many of the farmers paid for their land with it…for no man ever heard in those days of a person refusing to take it for a debt. For it was the rich man’s glory and the poor man’s consolation. . .[and] Happy indeed was that man thought to be, whose means were such that he could afford to get a whole barrel stowed away in some safe place, where he could resort to it at his pleasure for the comfort of himself and friends” (33). Park goes on so eloquently and lovingly:
“It warmed them when cold; it protected them in the harvest field from the evil effects of a scorching sun; it soothed their sorrows; it calmed their fears; it gave them courage in a fight; or it allayed the excited feelings of anger and made friends of those that had been at enmity. It braced up the system under fatigue, and protected it from the evil effects of a storm, of either rain or snow. It sharpened their appetite for their food, and sustained them under long fasting. It cured rheumatism, cholic and headache, and was an excellent remedy for a cold. It was a protection against the malaria of a new country, and one of the finest emollients for bruised flesh, or a sprained limb in the world. Indeed as a universal specific for all our sufferings in this life, whether physical, mental or moral. No patent medicine of modern day can compare with it…It was the first thing given to the baby, and the last thing applied to the cold clay of the mortal body to hold it to a natural freshness until laid in the tomb.” (34)
A true reverence for the substance clearly seems to have existed.
Settlers also understood very well the ways in which this elixir could be used militarily. They knew that it impaired judgement and encouraged chaos. This was their goal and their aim, as evidenced in 1821 when treaty commissioner Lewis Cass “refused to dispense the customary whiskey, stating that drinking might hamper the negotiations, but if the treaty were concluded he promised to give the Potawatomis enough alcohol ‘to make every man, woman and child in the nation drunk’” (35). In response to this offer, old Chief Topinabee responded, “We care not for the land, the money, or the goods, it is the whiskey we want—give us the whiskey” (36). Edmunds continues:
“The abundance of illegal whiskey in the Indian country caused many problems. It was cheaply produced, readily available, and commonly sold to the Potawatomis…The rotgut whiskey had a devastating impact upon the Potawatomis. Many Indians, including chiefs such as Topinabee, drank to excess and suffered the debilitating effects of such an addiction. After the 1821 treaty Cass kept his promise…and the resulting debacle caused the death of almost a dozen Indians…Topinabee’s death in the summer of 1826 occurred after the old chief became intoxicated and fell off his horse.” (37)
In the end, however, the Euro-white settler’s relationship with the powerful elixir would teach them that the very same destruction suffered by the indigenous peoples could be paralleled in their own lives. They would learn that the same destructive powers that they had unleashed upon the indigenous peoples’ lives had, at the same time, been unleashed upon themselves. Park wrote in 1870 that, “at the present day, we hear frequently of men dying by the use of alcoholic drinks—of its producing mania-a-potu, of its throwing others into the ditch—of its undermining mens’ estates; of its producing discord in families, and multiplying the inmates of prisons; of lunatic asylums; of poor houses, &c.,” (38). And in 1883 Josiah Morrow would continue:
“It is a mooted question not easily settled whether intemperance was more common then than now. That the spirituous liquors of those days were purer is admitted, but the notion that they were less intoxicating seems not to have been well founded. Excess in drinking then as now brought poverty, want and death. The early settler with the purest of liquors could drink himself to death.” (39)
Ironically enough the sale of whiskey to the Indians often backfired on the settlers as the drunkards caused damage and stole property. Although the claims of theft by the Indians were often times false, they still helped to fuel the desire to have every last Indian removed.
At the heart of it all, of course, was a mutual desire to live and flourish upon the same broad expanse of land. The Potawatomis did not back down easily and, in fact, many did not back down at all, and their physical removal from the land was forced. Potawatomi Chief Menominee proclaimed in 1838:
“The president does not know the truth. He, like me, had been imposed upon. He does not know that you made my young chiefs drunk and got their consent and pretended to get mine…He would not drive me from my home and the graves of my tribe, and my children, who have gone to the Great Spirit, nor allow you to tell me that your braves will take me, tied like a dog…the President is just, but he listens to the words of young chiefs who have lied; and when he knows the truth, he will leave me to my own. I have not sold my lands. I will not sell them. I have not signed any treaty, and will not sign any. I am not going to leave my lands.” (40)
Menominee’s speech, no matter how it might have moved their hearts, had little effect upon the actions of the whites. His peoples’ lands were soon overrun by settlers and later, after being lured out and surrounded, Menominee himself was taken into custody and forcibly enrolled for removal. He continued to refuse to cooperate and was eventually removed at gunpoint. His life would end in Kansas just a little more than two years after his proclamation. In the end of course, the euro-white settlers would fundamentally and dramatically alter the fragile prairie ecosystem they had taken from the semi-nomadic Potawatomis who truly understood the land.
“In an example of folk wisdom expressing truths long before they could be confirmed by science, the poet William Cullen Bryant wrote in 1846 that ‘it is a common remark in this country, that the first cultivation of the earth renders any neighborhood more or less unhealthy. ‘Nature’, said a western man to me, some years since, ‘resents the violence done to her, and punishes those who first break the surface of the earth with the plough.’” (41)
The briefest of ventures into the annals of American history quickly uncover entry upon entry in the violent and heartbreaking narrative of the Euro-white settlers relations with the land’s original occupants.
I wish my great grandfather were here to speak for himself about the use of whiskey in his history. The Euro-white’s distributed alcohol, particularly whiskey, as both a powerful commodity as well as a deadly chemical weapon, to the indigenous peoples of this continent. Authors have written about Robert’s history in many places over the years, but few list the sources of their information in regard to him. Did they interview him or did they just copy each other’s written accounts without providing sources? I am particularly careful when reading the history offered by Rufus Blanchard in 1882. The reason for this being that I uncovered Robert’s involvement in a lawsuit against Mr. Blanchard’s publisher, which claimed fraud, circumvention and non est factum. The trial brought additional assertions of “inaccuracies in, and omissions of, a number of events which…ought to have been put into the history” (42). There were neighbors of Robert’s who were equally disgusted with the reporting of the publisher’s agent Mr. Blanchard. More on this to come in a future chapter.
I am confident that my ancestors received assistance from the local Potawatomis in erecting their log-cabin and that these peoples’ labor was paid for in whiskey. From where I sit here today I send to the Potawatomis an eternal thank you. Thank you. I would also like to apologize and to say that I am sorry for the destruction that our introduction of whiskey to your people caused. I am truly sorry. Our American history contains entry upon entry in the heartbreaking narrative of the Euro-white settlers and their distribution of alcohol, especially whiskey, to the indigenous peoples of this continent as a form of chemical warfare. As professor Ronald R. Stockton, descendant of Robert Young Benjamin's uncle Nathan, wrote: “[T]he consequences of American history are permanent. Each person who benefits from the country’s bounty and greatness shares in the events that lead to that greatness…when we are in a position of power or privilege we can never be innocent of whatever was done to create the circumstances from which we benefit” (43). I am profoundly and deeply sorry.
The Benjamin family had already been long and intimately acquainted with the indigenous peoples of the American continent by the year 1834. My belief is that their relationship to the Potawatomis in DuPage County cannot have been entirely toxic. Contrary to Blanchard’s recording of a whiskey fueled riot that resulted in death, The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois asserts “The history of Du Page County is singularly free from those harrowing accounts of bloody encounters” (44). I also take stock in a reporter with the DuPage County Democrat who described having had “many confidential chats” with Robert Y. Benjamin before writing that, “In May, 1834…the county was full of Potawatomi Indians who trusted in [Robert’s] friendship and whom he trusted and often sheltered and with whom he lived in peace until their removal west of the Mississippi” (45). In 1882 Blanchard provides us with another possible example of the respect shown by Robert for the Potawatomi People. He wrote that after the occurrence of the whiskey riot that resulted in the death of a Potawatomi man, that a “frail tomb was [erected] on Mr. Benjamin’s land and was frequently visited by him out of curiosity,” and that “He did not disturb the corpse ‘In the grave where an Indian had laid him’” (46). I believe these assertions to be true…and not just because I want to.
I feel blessed to have before me the many thoughtfully written tales and painstakingly thorough research compiled over generations by so many storytellers, historians and researchers. Nothing is more exciting to find, however, than historical accounts written by one’s very own relations. In 1899, shortly before his death, William Frederick Benjamin, the first born child of Robert Y. and Nancy Benjamin, wrote an autobiography, which his descendants preserved and shared with the Douglas County Historical Society in Oregon.
William begins by saying, “It is sometimes a source of pleasure to know something of your ancestral tree, especially so if no fruits of lawlessness have developed” (47). He then continues: “The incidents in the life of a humble citizen are rarely of sufficient interest to attract any attention or regard save, perhaps, to a few of his immediate relatives. So for that reason I here briefly narrate a few episodes in my life” (48). No doubt William never imagined he would have a third great-grand nephew who, one hundred nineteen years later, would find his paper and adore it. A great-grand nephew who is honored to collaborate with him. A great-grand nephew who, too, loves history and writing. A great-grand nephew who has learned, across the vast reaches of time, to love him.
Another excerpt from the memories of Mr. Benjamin summarizes that year, way back when, in 1834:
“I remember it well—the 12th day of May 1834. My father, in company with his father, Daniel Benjamin, and his sons John and Andrew, Joseph Vail (sic) and family of two sons and two daughters pitched their tents upon a hilside (sic) near a spring of water and neath the forest trees, which, up to that time, not one had ever been marred by the white mans (sic) ax…Here my parents began life in Illinois 1834 by constructing a rude log cabin without a floor excep (sic) the bosom of Mother Earth. Here surrounded by Indians—the Patowatomies (sic)—we passed the first two years. Father broke up a few acres of prairie land and planted corn potatoes and melons ‘on the sod.’ The corn did not mature, the potatoes were not very good or plentiful and the Indians stole most of what he raised especially the melons and killed nearly every hog father and grandfather had driven with them from Indiana whence we came. So our supply of provisions was cut short. A few hundred pounds of flour was all we had—no mills in the county nor had father money to buy it if there had been so we were in a rather deplorable condition the first year. But by strict economy of our little store of flour, hominy made from ‘frost-bitten sod corn’ and game for meat which fathers (sic) flint lock rifle enabled him to procure we lived throug (sic) the winter of 1834. After that we fared sumptuously on good Jenny cake milk and butter and potatoes turnips and cabbage &etc (sic) The sheep driven into the county the fall of 1834 next year produced the wool mother carded spun and wove it with wheel and loom brought from Indiana. Thus began my life in the far west at the age of 7 years.” (49)
"Spinning, incidentally, is a very restful activity. That is a good thing, because it takes an enormous amount of time to make thread by hand. Like knitting, it is pleasantly rhythmic and can be done sitting down, with no physical exertion, just patience." (50)
That fall, prior to winter’s arrival, there was a joyous reunion for the family as “Mr. Benjamin,” had gone “to Indiana and brought his mother to their new home” (51). He then “improved his place as rapidly as his means would permit, working from sunrise to sunset, and then shoemaking till a late hour at night for his neighbors” (52). Robert was no doubt not alone in his toil for in those days any person on their feet would have been of assistance in some way.
Among those on their feet “working from sunrise to sunset” (53) were the women of the young settlement, in particular Robert’s mother Martha and wife Nancy. The ladies of their day. Both my paternal great-grandmothers. Bold and brave. Strong and resilient. Gifted. And, cruelly, often nameless to their descendants, for the women have so commonly been omitted from the annals of our patriarchal history. Therefore, this recording of history will pay honor and respect. Deep admiration and love. After all, “she bore her part in all the work” (54). “She was a housewife, mother, field laborer…Her hands spun and wove the cloth for the clothes…she milked the cows and made the butter and cheese. Not a bit of food was eaten under that cabin roof that she did not cook, and she worked a garden that yielded all the vegetables the family consumed” (55). At times, in order to go assist in the fields, women found it necessary to tie their “little ones to various parts of the cabin so they would not be able to hurt each other” (56). And, of course, when it came to their children and childbirth, “the pioneer woman would give birth…and within a few days be up and about her usual tasks” (57). In 1913, the compilers of the History of Illinois elegantly wrote:
“The pioneer women of Du Page County are worthy of special mention, for upon their shoulders fell, after all, the heaviest burdens associated with the development of civilization as it is found today. Nowhere is a women’s influence more powerful than in those localities where primitive conditions prevail, for it is upon her that the maintenance of the integral parts of the home and homestead depends.” (58)
“Men may work from sun to sun; But women’s work is never done" (59), and in the tradition of this proverb, in November of 1834, another auspicious event took place for the family when newborn George joined them, completing the picture in my mind of my family all huddled together in their little “rude log cabin without a floor excep (sic) the bosom of Mother Earth,” which is sitting “upon a hilside (sic) near a spring of water and neath the forest trees” (60).
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